1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for compression and decompression of image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Using conventional methods, there are a wide variety of data compression techniques and methods. Illustratively, using a conventional data compression technique for compressing input data, data is compressed by dealing with data as a set of words. These words have a specific number of bytes. The technique may include allocating a code having a short bit length to a word of high frequency of appearance. Further, the technique may include allocating a code having a long bit length and to a word of low frequency of appearance. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,907,638, for example, this allocation may be performed by utilizing deviation in the frequency distribution of words. Huffman coding is a well-known technique using such a compression method.
Accordingly, it should be appreciated that various conventional image compression methods use a variety of processes to achieve high compression ratios. The high compression ratios are achieved through the use of various predication processes. These prediction processes may be coupled with arithmetic, Huffman, or other advanced coding methods. In many conventional methods, image data is processed serially, i.e., one pixel at a time. As a result, software implementations of these techniques are inherently slow.